Not just another English teacher....

The Changing Times

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

We are the traders, upstanding us all
Merchants, purveyors, at your beck and call
Ready to help you, relieve you of cash
Just one thing we beg you, no change should you pass
Only paper is worthy, and coins if worth much
The lower in value too filthy to touch
It’s your duty to hoard it, in boxes to keep
And never reveal it to bury it deep
For what is this coinage but the pointless remains
Of the money you gave us, so spare us the pain
And please don’t insult us demanding your right
For if you had any then what here could I write?
In fact it’s a privilege extended to you
So please stop complaining that this will not do
Moreover, how dare you even challenge this quo
And say that it’s we who have burdened you so
For what would you be if it wasn’t for us
So please just be quiet and stop making a fuss.

The Unfinished Hotel

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

The homeless woman in the homeless women’s line

Always gave me the time to take my change with her sweet smile

The drunken Gypsy begging for a coin

Pointing at my bulging belly when I said that I had none,

As if my rotundness was my wealth

Any man who can build a belly must have money too.

Miklós shouting at me from two floors below

Never sober always drunk then never more

My reflection if I made my life that choice

His face remains but time has lost his voice.

The Jewish centenarians living right next door

TV blaring into the evening

To compensate a faded hearing

But deaf and drunk next door with my guitar

Their apologies unnecessary

Mine greeted with such gentle smiles.

The flower lady made her garden just downstairs

Smiling up at me in all my states

But my brother never felt but focused evil eye

Why me? he’d ask Not you?

I had no answer not that any could ever do

She was the flower lady with the changing mood

To turn her into an angel would do no good.

The courtyard queen sitting watching all

The kindest watchdog I have ever met

The Gypsy family scaring her away till they did leave again and she did stay

The skinhead bar the gauntlet to be run

On Friday nights the kicks would fly but wined up it mattered none

Except to the poor soul coming against me in the haze

No drink bravado to help him along his way

Then turning left or going straight ahead

To wherever this night that night it led

To Tina Turner’s bar at Podmaniczky’s end

The crooked smiles and tilted tongues,

The cheating, daring, hours lost and friendships won

From every side of day no end in sight

A springboard, a pillow, a hunger, till night took flight

Rub a dub dub three men stumbling in

The bodyguard the soldier the chef

A slip on the ice brought the big fellow down

But the helping hand winning free drinks.

Up Pod’s North East the two hearts did beat

The young lady for beauty

The old lady for speech

In our lingo the bar eponymously called

The Old Lady’s Now lost

At Immeasurable cost.

Such news learnt through a bath time discussion

Such things lost with education, progression.

New generations forsaking old ones’ schemes

Themselves in search of future dreams.

The trainyard calling in the depths of night, the tunnel farther up connecting in a howl on the drunken bike

The loneliness on those dark nighttime feats

The memories reflecting on the wet cobbled streets…

The Production Line

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

In the depth of a drink
Editing, considering,
I raise my eyes
Just for a moment
And watch
And I allow this distraction
And I allow it to grow,
Grow into the image
Of motion, movement,
Towards…?
The end of the line.

Impressions

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Friday fifth of July
Just over on Leitrim Street and Watercourse Road
Sun gleams through the freshness of the morning
Heating me from the inside.
Up at the Revenue’s Maedbh is nice
Her voice over the phone courteous, kind.
Next up and over through older and new
Along Lansdowne terrace then the top the Hill
To the school, my next stop, and where this summer will…
The laughter the smiles the general avoidance
Till mentioned and breezed over
Short-changed on overdue promises
Back through the city
Doing Pana at a stretch
Trusting and coiling till the Mall once again.
The bank building
A beauty, a glimpse of times past
The twenty on the floor
Unclaimed then named mine.
And last but not least
To the corner, Union Quay,
Not to Charlie’s but next door
Into the Grind and coffee
The comings and goings
The stories the chat
Another place I could drop into
If I ever really came back.

If I ever came back
On my own terms only
A nine to fiver would kill me
Of this now I am certain.

The title Lost

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Inside, the tap-ad-slap of falling raindrops soothes.
Outside it drenches to the bone.
All adventure set aside,
all such plans they dissipate…

along the fear inflected path…
“Enough,” I say “Enough of that!”
And yet the pen in fruit-continual
Bears Hope in words residual.
The easing of the ex-hibitions
Perhaps to failing my contrition
At every corner subterfuge
The ego does the man delude.

Holnap és hónap Nagy iX

Posted on June 21, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

What did the orange say to the apple at bedtime?
Sweet dreams.
Maybe it could work as a joke. Perhaps it should be a sour cherry talking to a normal cherry, or even the other way around for a piss-take. Am I making any sense?
Let’s go back to the beginning.
Fábry: Ferihegy! Ki a Feri és hol van a hegy?
It was the first Hungarian joke I got and while Fábry may have his detractors, he remains for me the bridge to Hungarian humor. Again, I imagine, many Hungarians clambering to assure me that this is not the quintessence of Hungarian wit and while I’m sure it’s not, as a foreigner getting a joke in the target language (however basic and unsophisticated…yawn) is the greater achievement. And listen maybe I am a paraszt in the Hungarian derogatory sense. Yokel, slack-jaw, redneck…you choose. I don’t quite get the Little Aggressive Pig jokes. I’m merely of the opinion that that tool is a twat and he reminds too much of somebody unpleasant. Maybe this is the point… Maybe I’m still in the dark.
Anyway, why I brought up the original orange and apple “joke” was because years ago after drinking cider with my brother-in-common-law, I later texted him Szép alma-kat. He got it, and I had achieved a result, an originally coined joke in the target language. As for Fábry, feck* that bunkó ember 😁.
Now, trying the joke in Hungarian I might have said:
Mit mondott a narancs az almának a lefekvés ideje előtt (Google translate helped me)?
Szép almákat.
If you are Hungarian and you’re not laughing, you’re humourless, or worse you’re racist! (Didn’t say I was going to box fair now, did I?😁)
Conclusion: As a teacher, going the road of teaching jokes is dark and dangerous and only few of your charges will ever understand, or worse, pretend to.
As a student, be prepared for the fact that your joke is only funny to other target language as a foreign language learners. The native may be forever left flummoxed. Don’t try to over-explain it. That just leads to embarrassment, or worse, anger and murderous rage. Well, hopefully that last part is an example of exaggeration.
Conclusion on the conclusion: As a teacher stick to the slapstick and if people insist on its base essence remind them of the comic genius of Charlie Chaplin, and be prepared to throw them an Andy Kauffman curveball (or Andy’s equivalent in your native tongue).
And remember, teach like you want to not like you have to.

Holnap és hónap to the nines

Posted on June 1, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

“I’m off to the Skyshop*” he announced.
Well, he could have said he was off to burn some shop too, but I was left none the wiser with that unconsoling thought.
“Okay” I replied meekly, afraid of being too non-committal. Maybe this was a desperate admission by a man who needed help from his friends, but this time at least he was going to have to get by without my little contribution.
He paused.
Shit
“ Aren’t you even a little curious?” he asked.
I met his searching gaze with an attempt at a blasé expression.
He laughed.
I was undone.
“Well, I’m off then.”
“Alright then” trying to muster up some feigned notion of courage.
Again he laughed, rather bellowed actually.
“See you some day then…and don’t let them catch you hanging around…or they’ll crucify you upside down.”
The smile washed from his face as he uttered these last words.
Always prophetic, I now took his words to heart.
“You’ll be alright” and with that he was gone.
“Jesus” I ventured into the void but he was gone, back to his father’s kingdom I suppose.
Sons of God, huh. Contrary folk at the best of times.
“Peter!” a voice beckoning from the nearby taverna.
“Alright Mary.”
Mothers of God. Impatient at the best of times.
*Égbolt

Holnap és hónap D Ate

Posted on May 25, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

To render or not to render, that is the question.
But to use it exclusively to mean to represent or depict artistically is to render all other definitions null and void, or to at least unwittingly to narrow ones scope of understanding.
So when a student, an architect, speaks of rendering, I can assume they are implying the artistic definition but when I try to explain its meaning elsewhere and have my word fobbed off as redundant, I am surely allowed to grow annoyed. But of course that is the teacher’s lot.
“That’s funny.”
“No it’s not!”
But I meant funny strange not funny ha ha.
Or when applying the abbreviated “ ‘morning” as a greeting and being met with the reply “Yes, it is” which with the right tone could be meant as a light-hearted joke, but with the obnoxious intent to dismiss the greeting as irrelevant noise, again the heckles rise up.
And then there’s bitch: it has more than one meaning as a noun so learn those other meanings please!
Well, that’s me done. Another day, another bitching session.

Holnap és hónap Hé7

Posted on May 18, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

With the shades drawn and his shades on, Mr. Shadow looked even shadier in the shadowy room. Suddenly the shadows of The Shades danced along the shades as the shades, whom I had called, arrived full beams glaring, trying to penetrate the shades to find the shady Mr. Shadow who was now trying to find within the shadows of this shadowy room a place to hide himself from The Shades therein approaching.

Whether or not the fate of Mr. Shadow concerns you, it is the very differences in the meaning of the word Shade which I’ve been focusing on this week. Well, when I say this week, I mean this morning. A question put to me, an answer given. In the end I kept my explanation to a minimum and I sure as hell didn’t include all the alternatives I have here. Imagine inviting that tropical thunder into your day.

As it stands, and as I sit here writing this, my students left still a little in the dark, perhaps I should say in the shade, but that itself may depend on how dark it was within their English weary minds, life rolls ever onwards, mysteries at every turn on this long, dark, windy, shady road.

Share or Shadow

Some explanations of shade/Shadow as used in the italicised text:

Curtains
sunglasses
More suspicious
Room full of Shadows
The Police: slang. Capitalised for the sake of the specific group who had arrived
The police: uncapitalised for the general call for help

Most, But not the most

Posted on May 18, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

A habit building is the habit to check the menu before ordering anything. With a 10% service charge added, there’s no need for a borravaló, And so there won’t be.

Sometimes I’d consider adding a little extra but not this time. The service is satisfactory but the attitude is less appealing. A slow pint, it seems, is not acceptable. A light lunch is also questioned though that could be forgiveable seeing as with a Menu of the Day on offer, most people would jump at the opportunity. Me too if only it wasn’t all a little confusing, the menu itself that is. Set in a trendy newspaper style it fails to deliver. Too many pokey points.
However, it’s when I’m approached for the third time and asked if I’d like another beer, still a sizeable slug remaining, that I feel a bit put off. The place is nearly empty, except for me, and friends of the staff, or the owners themselves. Who knows.
The prices are also above acceptable especially for what you get. Over one thousand forints for a soup requires something more than nachos sprinkled on what could only be described as Nacho dip.
And then the beer at 890ft. Most, itt vagyok, Most-ban, and this is more than the most I’d like to pay for a snack. My other haunts torment me now, forlorn spectres adrift on the plateau of lost opportunities.